How would you rate your pain?
by BespectacledSloth
Summary: (SPOILERS) Hiro deals with the loss of his brother, and the loneliness that comes with no longer sharing a room with him. Diverts from the storyline of the movie from the get-go and occasionally criss-crosses a scene or two. Trigger warning: Self-harm, suicidal thoughts. One-shot.


So it's been awhile since I wrote a fanfic, and I'm not even sure if this is remotely good enough to post, but I'm going to anyways because it's been almost eight years since anyone read anything I wrote that wasn't a school assignment. Trigger warning: self-harm, suicidal thoughts. This fanfic does contain spoilers right from the very beginning (including in this header) so please be warned about that. Also criss-crosses the plot once or twice but otherwise diverts on a path different from the movie involving the activation of Baymax after Tadashi's death and one or two other things.

Anyways thanks for reading, and please leave comments on how I can improve.

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The room had grown colder in the mere hours since the funeral. It was like all the warmth in the world had left, and now everything about Tadashi that made him wonderful, his love, his smile, the heart and soul he put into everything he did for every day of his life, was gone with him. And the entire world felt colder for it.

Hiro sat in his room, the shades drawn, the lights off, and stared at the bed across from his. He stared at the hat, left perched in the center of the bed, and he felt the tears well up in his eyes. He felt anger swell in his heart. He felt everything he had refused to feel up until now. Why had Tadashi done something so stupid? Why had he run into the building and tried to be a hero? If he had just waited outside, if he had just stayed with Hiro, everything would be okay. Professor Callaghan would be the only one gone and Hiro wouldn't feel so...

Alone.

Even with his Aunt, and all of Tadashi's friends all around him, he still felt incurably lonely, especially in that room that had once been inhabited with so much laughter and love and even when Tadashi wasn't laughing or speaking to him, he could feel him there and could feel his warmth and kindness. But now he felt nothing. Now he felt empty. When he tried to think of how Tadashi had made him feel when he was around, he couldn't remember. It had only been a few days and already he couldn't remember what it felt like to be near Tadashi.

Hiro felt cold.

Hiro felt a tremor in his bottom lip and quickly bit down on it to stop it from happening. He didn't want to cry. He couldn't cry. He had tried, for sure, but he couldn't bring himself to cry before, and now he no longer wanted to. Crying wouldn't fix anything. Crying wouldn't bring Tadashi back. Crying wouldn't help him. The only thing that could fix anything was if everything just stopped.

It only took a small amount of searching on his computer, but Hiro felt he had found a solution to the all-consuming loneliness that lie in his heart. To the empty feeling that lie in his stomach and head. To the cold he felt deep down in his soul.

It only took a few keystrokes.

It only took asking the internet how to make everything stop, and suddenly Hiro had a list of ways to make everything stop. Pain, guilt, sorrow, loneliness. He had a list a mile long of ways to make everything just end.

And he would try everything until it did.

The first thing on the list was drowning.

Hiro found this one the hardest to attempt, or even to get started. He tried climbing into the bathtub and staying underwater, but after a few seconds, when his lungs began to burn and his throat was involuntarily opening and closing, attempting to draw air, his body seemed to react on its own and he finally opened his mouth as he slung himself out of the water, inhaling a small amount as he went, but nothing close to drowning. He stayed leaned over the side of the tub for what felt like hours as he coughed and sputtered the teaspoon or so of water from his airway.

Attempt one was a failure.

Drowning was too painful, Hiro decided later that night, when Aunt Cass had gone out and he was left in the entire quiet home with only himself and his thoughts. He made his way to his computer and pulled up the list again.

The second suggestion was exsanguination. That was a simple enough way to go. All he had to do was find the proper blade, and he could be done and out within an hour. Everything would end and he could see Tadashi and remember him and his warmth and his kindness again. Everything would be okay.

Exsanguination, the site said, was most easily achieved by cutting, not across the wrist, but from inner elbow to wrist in one straight line. This would sever a major artery and would end the process fairly quickly. Not even both arms had to be slit for it to be effective.

Hiro wandered to the kitchen and found himself a useable knife, fairly sharp, and clean enough anyways. He made his way to his room and sat down beside the desk, leaning against his bed and staring out the window at the sky before he drew the knife up to his wrist and placed it against his flesh. The cold sting of the stainless steel made him shudder briefly, and he closed his eyes, taking deep breaths as he prepared to cut, but when it came to actually moving the knife, the sharp pain of the cut made him honestly reconsider making one long cut. That would hurt twice as much as one short one, and would take longer.

He repositioned the knife, water the small trickle of blood form at the surface of the initial incision, and instead brought the knife just below his wrist. He pushed on the blade and quickly pulled it across his forearm, letting out a small hiss as he came to the end of his stroke, and switched hands. The next cut he made was faster and marginally deeper, as he tried to get the initial pain out of the way as quickly as possible. When he was done, he dropped the blade to the floor and stared at the cuts.

The beads of blood began hitting the floor before tears could even well up in his eyes, and he began to sob softly, sniffling and rocking his body slightly as more blood began to seep from the wounds and onto his clothes and the floor. He leaned his head back against the bed and closed his eyes, crying openly now, and let his body heave with sobs.

In a few moments, he found himself laying over on the floor, feeling the blood on his arms and seeping into his clothes, and he found himself wishing the stinging pain would just stop, would just end, because he didn't want to be in pain, he wanted everything to just stop.

After that, Hiro didn't feel much of anything.

And then, after that, he woke up laying on the floor, his face still slightly damn with tears, and his wrists burning like nothing before. Not like his lungs when he'd tried to drown himself, not like his heart when Tadashi's body had been recovered from the wreckage of the building. This kind of pain trumped emotional and physical pain.

But it also made him feel alive.

When his head had stopped swimming enough for him to sit up, he did so, and looked at his wrists, and then at the time. How long he'd been out he couldn't be sure, but he'd gotten the knife some time around eight, and it was now nearly midnight. Aunt Cass had probably come home and assumed he was asleep, so she had gone to bed instead of coming up, afraid to wake him, so he'd been lying there, in a small puddle of his own blood, for close to four hours.

He pulled his wrists close to his face and studied them. They hadn't clotted completely, and he should have known they would clot most of the way long before he lost too much blood, but he'd been hoping a miracle would happen and he wouldn't wake up to sore wrists and crust blood on his arms. What hadn't clotted was barely dribbling blood now, and he nearly wept again.

Hiro recovered, of course, from this episode, and within a week the wounds had healed quite a bit, but Hiro still kept a knife by his bedside and once, sometimes twice, a night, would bring it to his flesh again. At this point, he no longer felt any connection to the world. In fact, the wounds were a way of reminding himself that he was still in the world, and he tried to use them to keep himself grounded, but eventually he just felt so numb that he even stopped cutting altogether. He stopped a lot of things. He stopped eating. Talking. Reading. He even shut down his computer and spent his days staring out a window. He just didn't feel like doing anything. For awhile Aunt Cass couldn't look him in the eye. She didn't know about the suicide attempts, but she could tell he was depressed and couldn't figure out how to react. That was shortly before she began acting like her old self in an attempt to bring him back to Earth.

One day she showed up with a box.

The box contained everything of Tadashi's that had been at the university, as well as a number of things that his friends had added in for Hiro to see. Pictures of Tadashi, DVDs with videos of him, no doubt, and even a collection of books he'd apparently lent to Wasabi at some point that were "from his personal stash and they were really great!" according to a sticky note on one of them. Hiro couldn't bring himself to even crack a cover. He pushed the items aside and lay in bed for a few days, not really sleeping, just drifting in and out of nightmares.

A couple of times everyone came to see how he was, but they'd mostly sit in the room and talk to each other about him since he wouldn't speak. A few times they tried to tell him about Tadashi. He didn't want to hear about his brother, though. What could they tell him that he didn't know? Tadashi was his brother, not theirs, and how dare they assume he would want to hear stories about the good old days when Tadashi would work on tech for Baymax while talking endlessly about his genius brother. He knew how proud Tadashi had always been of him and he didn't need to be reminded of it.

He wanted to say all of that to them. He wanted to yell and throw things and scream it out to the world that he didn't want to hear about Tadashi from virtual strangers. But the truth was, he wanted nothing more than to hear about him. He couldn't remember the kindness in Tadashi's heart on his own. He needed to hear it.

But instead of acting interested, he brought the covers over his head and shut them out every time. The first time he did this, they stuck around for awhile, whispering, and he heard them go into Tadashi's half of the room for awhile. He assumed they were unpacking the box. It had sat there for awhile after all.

Eventually they stopped coming. They'd send video messages every day or so after that, and then every week, and then he didn't hear from them for awhile.

"The university called again today," Aunt Cass said one day when she was bringing him another plate of food he would maybe pick at but probably pass on eating any of. He'd become accustomed to only eating a bite or two of breakfast, and then nothing at all the rest of the day. He couldn't keep much else down when he even tried anyways. "Classes started a few weeks ago, but it's still not too late to register," she said softly, placing the envelope Professor Callaghan had given him at the student fair on his desk.

He didn't pay much mind to her, but shrugged and softly said, "I'll think about it," but he didn't mean it.

After she'd left he picked the letter up and threw it in the trash. He had no intention of ever attending that school. It was that schools fault that Tadashi was gone, after all. Why would he want to go back there? Why would he want anything to do with that school ever again? He wouldn't. And that was the simple facts.

He picked up the tiny robot he'd once used to win bot fights for petty cash. He hadn't really touched it much in the past weeks, but he had been staring at it since he woke up from his nightmare that morning and something kept telling him to pick it up.

He glanced at Tadashi's bed a few times that morning. Since his friends had unpacked that box, Tadashi's hat lay in the middle of the bed, and Baymax not far away to the side of it. Stupid Baymax. Why hadn't he activated and saved Tadashi? Why did he have to active every time someone said "ow," what a stupid keyword! He should have activated when Tadashi was in trouble and come to save him.

Stupid Baymax. Stupid robot. Stupid stupid-

The bottom half of his tiny robot fell from his hand, landing squarely on his toes.

"Ow!" He shouted, stumbling and sitting on the bed.

He instantly heard the familiar hiss he'd heard only once before and squared his shoulders up.

Stupid Baymax.

Baymax struggled to get around to Hiro's bed from across the room on the other side of Tadashi's, knocking some things over on the way, and finally stopped in front of Hiro moments later.

"Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion."

Hiro was stunned, he stared in bewilderment at Baymax for a moment, then stuttered out, "Uh, hey, Bay-Baymax, I didn't know you were still... active."

"I heard a sound of distress, what seems to be the trouble?"

Hiro sighed softly, "I just stubbed my toe a little," he pushed a smile onto his face, "I'm fine."

"On a scale from one to ten," Baymax began as an array of little smiley faces appeared on his belly, "How would you rate your pain?"

"A-A zero. I'm okay, really, thanks" Hiro insisted, "You can shrink now."

Baymax extended a single finger and leaned forward, "Does it hurt when I touch it?"

"No, that's okay," Hiro laughed softly, less out of amusement and more from embarrassment, as he gently pushed Baymax away, "No touching, I'm fi—ah...agh!" He shouted as he tripped over his own toolbox on the floor. He stumbled backwards and expected to feel pain in his back or butt, anywhere but where he felt it.

Baymax and grabbed his arm to stop him from falling, and suddenly his entire arm was searing with pain from the contact. He'd been wearing long sleeves since he began cutting, and hadn't cut in awhile, but many of the wounds were still healing, and some were deeper than others. Some of them were slightly infected and were really really painful.

"Baymax, let go!" Hiro shouted, pushing him off and tripping over himself this time. He landed on his butt and hissed, cradling his arm to his chest.

Baymax studied him briefly, blinking at him, "You have fallen," he proclaimed, grasping Hiro by the arms and pulling him up, "Your forearms," he said after a quick nod up and down Hiro's body, "appear to have sustained multiple lacerations over a period of time."

"I said I'm fine, Baymax, now go back in your box," Hiro snapped at him, turning away.

Baymax stood quietly by his side for a moment, seemingly processing, and then reached out and gingerly took Hiro by the arm and turned him back to him, "Your forearms appear to have sustained multiple lacerations over a period of time. A total of..." he paused, "six have become moderately infected and require treatment before the infection worsens. Recommended treatment: anti-bacterial spray and a series of stitches to fully seal all wounds."

He was a robot and Hiro couldn't bring himself to make eye contact with him as he spoke. He could only stare pointedly at the floorboards and hope Baymax's batteries suddenly ran out of juice so he wouldn't be overheard by Aunt Cass. Instead, he felt Baymax gently rolling his sleeves up on either side, revealing his marred flesh, and running his finger, which was quickly distributing antibacterial spray over the injuries. He said nothing—neither of them did—but merely treated him silently. When he was done with the spray, his next treatment was the stitches and the needle seemed to appear out of seemingly nowhere. He stitched quickly and with precision to close up the most recent of the slashes so they would remain uninfected.

When he was finished, he stood tall beside Hiro and processed quietly for a moment before he spoke again, "I can only shut down when you say that you are pleased with your treatment."

Hiro was quiet for longer than Baymax had been. He stared at his arms, only just realizing how much harm he had done to himself, and he closed his eyes before the tears could spill over. He felt like crying suddenly. He wasn't sure why, but something about Baymax made him feel like Tadashi was there again. But he wasn't. Tadashi was gone and the room was cold and Baymax was an emotionless robot.

"I am pleased with my treatment," he said softly, refusing to look at Baymax.

Baymax began to walk back to his case, but before he entered he turned and said softly, "On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" and then he got inside and began his shutdown process.

Hiro laughed softly, tears now streaming freely down his face, and chewed his lip briefly.

"Higher than you have a face for, Baymax," he whispered. "Higher than you have a face for."

x—x-x-x-x-x-x

I would like it to be known that I am very displeased with that ending. I tried to write it better. Hell, I tried to write the whole thing better, but the words just came out wrong every time.

I hope it was sufficient enough to warrant some feedback, though.

Thanks for reading!


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